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Mythomorphia: An Extreme Colouring and Search Challenge – A Review

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Mythomorphia is illustrated by Kerby Rosanes, and published and kindly sent to me to review by Michael O’Mara Books. This is the third and final book in the series after Animorphia and Imagimorphia. This book has a mythical theme and is a bit less intricate and less morphing than the first two books and contains fewer alien creatures than Animorphia too, that being said, it’s still incredible and really has to be seen to be believed, it’s probably the best book on the market with a mythological theme because of the sheer variety of creatures pictured.

The book is 25cm square, the same size as Animorphia and other bestsellers by JB and MM, it’s paperback with a black card cover with bright red lettering and a dragon (UK copy: other countries’ editions have different coloured lettering but the content is the same in all of the books titled Mythomorphia) in Kerby’s signature style which hints at what’s inside. The paper is bright white, very lightly textured and medium thickness, it doesn’t appear to shadow with water-based fineliners as long as you’re careful but do always check your pens somewhere inconspicuous to make sure you don’t ruin any reverse images. The paper is good for pencils and allows for a few layers for blending and shading. The ink does transfer a little when pressure is applied so when you’re using pencils pop a scrap piece of paper behind to avoid transfer. The book contains 80 images which are printed double-sided and include single (18) and double-page spreads (including 7 paired images which don’t enter the spine and have separate but similar designs on each page, and 24 traditional double-page spreads which do enter the spine and aren’t stand-alone images). The book has a glue- and stitch-bound spine which is fairly tight on arrival and the images are borderless so you do lose a strip of each image into the spine and unfortunately a number of the double-page spreads do have large sections of the creature’s body which enter the gutter however these are accessible if you break the spine. The content itself is all based around mythology and mythological creatures and a truly huge range are pictured from unicorns to mermaids, a hydra to a phoenix, different types of dragons and loads of hybrid creatures including a basilisk, manticore, cockatrice, faun, griffin and many, many more. While many of these creatures are drawn in Kerby’s typical morphine style, a number of them are drawn without morphs and simply as scenes. The morphing parts consist of all sorts of things from rock, flames and waves to smoke, flowers, bats and trees as well as a couple in Kerby’s most well-known style including lots of random objects, plants and swirls. The images are incredible and as always, they’re packed with content to look at and colour, the range of mythological creatures is astounding and a number of them were beasts I’d never heard of so I’ve had a great time researching them and the stories behind them!

In terms of mental health, this is one book that’s absolutely fantastic for distraction! It takes quite a lot of concentration to identify all of the parts of the picture let alone start choosing colours so this really is a book that will help you get through the days when your mind is racing and you need to be able to switch off. It’s not a book for the faint-hearted because each image takes a very long time and a lot of work but it’s so worth it and the effects you can create are amazing! This book doesn’t have any pages where you need to add your own doodles, I’m really pleased about this because I can’t draw at all so I’m glad that all of them are finished this time and ready to colour! The images are very cohesive and they contain such a variety of creatures, most of the images have some shading and texture drawn in but not loads (check out the pictures below to decide if you like this feature or not). The line thickness varies throughout but mainly sticks around the thin mark so you need fairly good vision and fine motor control, but definitely not perfect to enjoy this book! There is also a treasure hunt with 3 pages at the back of the book showing all of the items you can hunt for within the images, followed by thumbnails showing the answers. This book is ideal for those of you who have a fairly good attention span so that you can really get involved in the images and the content is so absorbing that you really do get out of your head and away from your thoughts and become immersed in what you’re colouring. The images have a variety of intricacy and detail levels so you can use simpler images on bad days and more detailed images on days where you’re able to focus better so it’s a great book for those of you with fluctuating conditions. Because the beasts are mythological there are no “correct” colour schemes so you can really go to town with your outlandish colour schemes or if you need a bit of help then have a quick Google, you’re sure to find film or art representations of most of them that you can use as inspiration for your colour choices.

I would highly recommend this book for male and female colourers who love all things weird, wonderful, and mythological. This book is packed with amazing images that are great fun to colour, it’s stunning, overwhelming at times and one that really gets your creative juices flowing so grab your pencils and get colouring mythology!